It was a matter of winners takes all in today’s final race of the Derwent Sailing Squadron/Cascade Winter Series on the River Derwent – the race winners in each division today also taking out the overall trophies.
DSS members collected the silverware in two divisions, Wayne Banks-Smith’s Farr 40 War Games winning Division 1 and Graeme Harrington’s Young 88 Vasco taking out Division 2. Veteran RYCT member Tom Kirkland won Division 3 with his Superstition 27 Ragtime.
In the SB20 Winter Series, Anonymous, steered by Ollie Nicholas, won both races today to clinch an overall one-design victory on a countback from Stephen Catchpool’s Hypertronics.
With a light SSW to S breeze blowing, in contrast to the normal Sunday morning northerly, race officer ‘Biddy’ Badenach set a cross river course for the main fleet, with the windward mark off Manning Reef.
With light snow falling on the peak of Mount Wellington, it was a chilly morning afloat with the temperature not rising above 9º C during the racing.
War Games led Division 1 from start to finish easily winning line and handicapping honours, with Hot August Night (Nat Morgan) second on corrected time and Pisces (David Taylor) third. War Games’ competition was reduced when Ciao Baby (Gary Cripps) tangled with a rounding mark.
War Games easily won the series, reduced to four races because of one galeswept Sunday, resulting in there being no discard. The Farr 40 won three races outright and with a second in the other, ended with 5 points. Hot August Night finished with 13 points, Pisces with 16 points.
Vasco also scored a comfortable outright victory in Division 2, winning the final race on line and handicap from Spare Time (Shane Powell) and North Sails (Matthew Morgan). The win gave Vasco a series score of 12 points, two points clear of Wildfire (Team Wildfire) which did not race today. Rousabout (Derek Inglis), another non-starter, finished third overall on 17 points.
Tom Kirkland celebrated 60 years of racing on the Derwent by winning the final race for Division 3 and taking out the series with Ragtime. The 87-year-old today scored his third win of the DSS Winter Series, leading the fleet around the course to beat Serenity (Graham Hall) by 23 seconds on corrected time. Third place went to Which Way Up (Steve Davison), a further 12 seconds back.
Overall, Ragtime finished with 5 points, Serenity with 9 and Which Way Up with 14 points.
War Games heading downwind to score an outright win and take out the Winter Series. Photo Peter Campbell
In the SB20s, the overall Winter Series win by Anonymous can be attributed to three different helmsmen – owner/skipper Steve Henley who entered the boat in the series, Nick Rogers who took the helm for some races, and today to Ollie Nicholas, who steered her to two wins for new owner Greg Prescott.
Anonymous won both races on scratch and handicap. In the one-design scoring this brought her up to equal points (14) with Hypertronics (Stephen Catchpool) and first place overall on a countback. Over the nine-race series Anonymous won three races, Hypertronics two. Brainwave (Scott Brain) finished third overall on 16 points.
Under PHS scoring, Anonymous finished with 19.5 points, Hypertronics with 21, third place going to Pez (Hunt Gore) on a countback from Big Ted (Alice Grubb).
In today’s one-design results, Anonymous won the first race from Brainwave and Hypertronics, the second from Hypertronics and Brainwave, the winning margin just four seconds. On PHS results, race 1 went to Anonymous from Hypertronics and Pez, race 2 to Anonymous from Pez and Brainwave.
Peter Campbell
23 August 2015
